Bearna village to be devoured beneath the concrete of Galway city

galway | environment | news report Saturday September 25, 2004 12:42 by Terry - NUIG Ecology Society room101ucg at yahoo dot co dot uk

Gaeltacht village under attack by developers

Bearna is a picturesque Gaeltacht hamlet by the shores of Galway bay, with the Burren and the Aran islands on the blue horizon.
OK, OK, it’s usually grey.

There are currently 7 major planning applications including the proposed development of 176 apartments, 112 townhouses, plus office development, hotels and pubs.

Two planned developments are to use notoriously inefficient temporary sewerage facilities, which have the habit of blocking and backing up.

Part of this includes the development by Bomac Properties Ltd. of Unit 2, Galway Enterprise Park, Lough Atalia, Galway for a
so-called new ‘village town centre’ on a shoreline site. This includes offices, a hotel, shopping centre, apartments and underground car parks.

Drainage and road development for this scheme show it to be just phase one of a more expansive development.

This is immeasurably out of character with the village, will obliterate views of the sea, and greatly stretch the existing infrastructure. The latter is already over-taxed with the National School applying for permission to set up portakabins in place of classrooms. Furthermore the main body of the development will be adjoining that school, adding to traffic hazards.

Finally as this new “village town centre” is on the shoreline it poses a threat to the ecology of that habitat.

The Pobal Na Bearna campaign organised the lodging of 2,304 planning permission objections to this in early September.
Padraig Campbell of this group will be speaking about the Bearna situation and Corrib Gas
(see http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=66344)

on Wednesday, September 29th, in the Hub, Sports Centre, NUI Galway. This is hosted by the Ecology Society, and kicks off at 7.30pm

More information: http://www.pobalbearna.com/